Every April, tens of thousands of the world’s most avid music fans flock to Southern California to kick off music festival season at Coachella. This year, you don’t even need a ticket to be a part of the show.

For the third year in a row, you can catch the entire first weekend live from Indio on Coachella's official YouTube channel. Starting this Friday at 3:30 p.m. PT, YouTube's three-channel feed, which is presented by T-Mobile, will live stream performances from five stages (including, for the first time, the Sahara Tent). You'll be able to catch artists' interviews with and live shows from more than 60 bands, including the xx, Passion Pit, Vampire Weekend and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

So whether you can't stand the desert heat or are just suffering from massive FOMO, be sure to check out the entire Coachella schedule here on YouTube.

Billboard and Nielsen have shaped the core measures of success for entertainers around the world. These institutions created the standard we all look to when assessing the popularity of an artist, an album or that song you just can’t stop playing. Each week, their rankings are eagerly awaited by budding musicians, bona fide rock stars and music executives alike.

Of course, the music industry has changed dramatically in recent years. We’ve seen artists become stars through channels that simply didn’t exist a decade or two ago. From Gangnam Style and grandpa style to the Alabama Shakes and the Harlem Shake, YouTube has become a place where artists connect with new audiences, and music fans are finding songs, bands and genres they never knew they loved.

That’s why we’re partnering with Billboard and Nielsen to include our U.S. data into their “Hot” charts--the Hot 100 List, Hot Country Songs, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, R&B Songs, Rap Songs, Hot Latin Songs, Hot Rock Songs and Dance/Electronic Songs. Meaning, all official videos on YouTube, including user-generated clips that utilize authorized audio, will now factor into how a song’s popularity is determined.

This announcement marks a big step in accurately reflecting how music lovers are finding their new favorite songs. And it builds upon our efforts to share this kind of data with key industry analytical tools like Next Big Sound and BigChampagne, which also help artists succeed both on and offline. Most importantly, we hope this news will excite our users, who have helped us discover some of the biggest stars and songs of the past seven years.

Over the past seven years, YouTube has become a global stage where music lovers can follow their top bands and find new favorite artists. After all, it wasn't so long ago that K-Pop exploded with PSY's "Gangnam Style" becoming the first YouTube video to hit 1 billion views. Similar music movements have continued to cross borders with legendary Taiwanese rock band Mayday live streaming a concert from the YouTube headquarters and Japanese singer Kyary Pamyu Pamyu starring in a new channel about Tokyo's ultra-cute Harajuku fashion neighborhood.

Keeping up with the latest in Asian pop on YouTube will be even easier after today's official launch of A-Pop. The channel will be a hub for live-streaming concerts from Asian artists, directly hosting shows in progress or otherwise displaying a calendar of upcoming events. You can also find the newest videos from Asian pop artists and a playlist of the week's Top 20. There are also individual tabs for K-Pop, C-Pop or J-Pop if you want to narrow down to one of the three.

The A-Pop Channel already has a few big events planned. A-Pop Star Week kicks off on March 8 and fans will be able to connect with top A-Pop stars using Google+ Hangouts. Here's the lineup so far:

You can tune in to Hangouts from A-Pop and ask questions of the stars by submitting questions on Google+ via a special hashtag. Visit www.google.com/+jpop, www.google.com/+kpop, or www.google.com/+cpop for more information on how to participate. The stars will be hand-picking five lucky participants for each Hangout, so be sure to submit a creative question!

There are a lot of exciting things yet to come from the Asian pop explosion, so make sure you subscribe to the A-Pop channel to get the latest news and updates.

What have you always wanted to know about the Biebs? Starting today, and running until midnight ET on June 20, you have the chance to ask Justin Bieber all those burning questions. Head over to youtube.com/kidrauhl and pour your heart out—Justin will hear you! And be ready to tune in to youtube.com/presents on June 21 at 7pm ET to watch the interview -- with none other than Jimmy Fallon -- live.

YouTube Presents gives music fans an opportunity to get more into the music and artists they love with live performances and interviews at venues around the world. Check out recent performances and concerts with artists including Taylor Swift, The Shins, Ziggy Marley, Lenny Kravitz and more on youtube.com/presents.

On YouTube, musical artists and acts from the established to the experimental can share their talent, find new fans, and sing their hearts out. And we’re committed to making sure their works can reach the widest audience, and that the singers and songwriters will continue to be appropriately compensated for these works that we all love so much.

Our Content ID system allows music publishers to identify the works of songwriters whether the compositions appear in an original sound recording or in a cover version, using information provided to us by the publishers. This means that more songwriters will be able to share in more of the revenue that the YouTube community’s creativity yields. Content ID is used today by 3,000+ partners including every major US music publisher, record label, network broadcaster, and movie studio.

These new deals, along with the licenses from the many publishers who have opted in to last year’s deal with the NMPA / Harry Fox Agency, will allow us to monetize nearly all of the user generated videos with music on YouTube. Why is this important? When these publishers allow YouTube to run ads alongside user generated videos that incorporate their compositions, then the publishers, the songwriters they represent, and the record labels and artists using their compositions, all make money - so they can reinvest in their careers and keep making great music, and the music industry can thrive.

Some of the biggest musicians from around the world will gather over the coming week as part of Vivid LIVE, the annual music event held at Sydney Opera House as part of Vivid Sydney, the city’s annual festival of light, music and ideas.

For the first time, audiences around the globe will be able to watch select performances live on YouTube, and share the experience through a custom camera application called FRONTROW.

During the livestream, not only can you sit back and enjoy the tunes of some renowned musicians, you can also participate right from your desktop! In a world first, you can take photos of the event through the FRONTROW camera app: zoom in and out to change your view, take photos during the live stream, apply filters and immediately share on your social networks.

Oh, and what will you be watching? The line-up of performances includes:

We kicked off today with German design collective URBANSCREEN lighting the sails of Sydney Opera House

Update: Tickets for the concert have all been reserved, but you can watch the concert live on the YouTube Presents channel.

Last December, we added Korean pop style K-Pop to our genres on the Music page, making it easier for the growing number of K-Pop fans in and out of Korea to find the latest videos from the top Korean artists and music labels. Now we’re bringing K-Pop to you live on YouTube!

We’ve teamed up with Korean broadcaster MBC to host a concert in the U.S. on Monday, May 21 featuring some of the top K-Pop acts. The concert, YouTube Presents MBC K-Pop Concert, will be held at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, CA and will start at 7pm PT. If you want to attend, you can reserve free tickets from this website. You can also tune into the livestream on the YouTube Presents channel during the concert on May 21.

We hope to see K-Pop fans in the U.S. at Shoreline, and we hope the rest of you will tune in wherever you are. For those who are totally new to the genre, we recommend that you check out a few episodes of Simon and Martina’s YouTube show K-Pop Music Mondays.

The American Express Unstaged series, in partnership with Vevo and YouTube, matches a musical act with a visionary director to create a unique online experience. Previous match-ups have included Duran Duran directed by David Lynch, Arcade Fire directed by Terry Gilliam, and My Morning Jacket directed by Todd Haynes.

Tonight at 6pm PT, Gary Oldman will direct the live stream of a very special performance from Jack White. At a time when White is embarking on a brand new solo project, with his album Blunderbuss performing well both critically and commercially, we're excited to see what he brings to the stage of New York City's Webster Hall!

One of the best line-ups in music? Three days of live concerts? In the desert? Say yes to Coachella 2012, coming to you all weekend on YouTube!

Since 2001, the the Coachella Music and Arts festival has brought thousands of fans to southern California to kick off the music festival season in style. For the second year, YouTube will be live streaming the action, with a three day broadcast of the festival, presented by State Farm.

Audiophiles can choose a concert that matches their energy on March 28 at 6pm PT by visiting The Switch, an interactive music experience on YouTube, powered by 5 Gum.

During this intimate music experience, fans can enjoy two simultaneous live-streaming performances, curated by tastemakers La Blogotheque. Givers will bring their energetic sounds, while Theophilus London delivers relaxing grooves. At The Switch, you can pick the music that suits your mood.

The Switch experience continues with specially curated playlists that highlight La Blogotheque’s signature Take Away Shows, presented with a visual twist. These performances from stars like Vampire Weekend and emerging artists like My Brightest Diamond are another way to lay back or liven up, and see music in a new light. Check out playlists selected by the artists or build one of your own.

Catch new sounds on YouTube and see where your moods take you on The Switch.